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Reviews
The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by William H. McNeill, John Robert McNeill
veganschnitzel's review
3.0
Definitely an interesting look at the development of human society, giving due coverage to development in non-Western areas for the world and positing reasons of why some societies were able to develop faster or more effectively than others. I do wish the book was more self-critical, however; rarely did the authors concede that there was disagreement about how events happened or how these events should be explained, and the book contains few citations. It'd also be nice if the prose was a little livelier - the authors, especially toward the beginning, tend to stack facts on top of each other, and going on about who was growing sorghum and who was growing alfalfa without context of what these different agricultural trends meant doesn't make for fascinating reading.
ewoo670's review
3.0
Well, technically I didn't finish the whole thing, but I did my last reading for my Global History course today, so I'd say it counts.
This book was a really good overview of the history of humanity, told with an emphasis on globalisation which I liked. There is a lot of information to take in though, and at times it can seem overwhelming. However, if you have an history event you want to get a good overview for, and maybe view it from a different global perspective, this book is likely to have what you're looking for.
This book was a really good overview of the history of humanity, told with an emphasis on globalisation which I liked. There is a lot of information to take in though, and at times it can seem overwhelming. However, if you have an history event you want to get a good overview for, and maybe view it from a different global perspective, this book is likely to have what you're looking for.
mattie's review against another edition
3.0
The history of the entire human race in just over 300 pages. Dense and often slow but pretty interesting. I learned a lot about longstanding ecological connections between humanity and the planet: the domestication of wheat, goats, etc etc. It was good at drawing complex connections: alfalfa bacteria meant certain crops could be cultivated which could support certain types of horses which meant raiders could sweep into China from the steppes. Impressively done, alfalfa bacteria!
..... I know I had more to say but I finished this in September so WHO KNOWS what it was.
..... I know I had more to say but I finished this in September so WHO KNOWS what it was.